Epilogue
MARCO
Iwas nine years old the first time someone told me I was unwanted.
They didn’t use that exact word. No—adults were more subtle with their cruelty.
I was standing on the porch holding my only bag, a battered nylon duffel that held a toothbrush, two shirts, and a pair of jeans that had never really fit me without a belt.
My social worker—her name was Mrs. Diaz—had gently placed her hand on my shoulder and said something that sounded reassuring, but what she really meant was, “Sorry, kid. Maybe next time.”
And just like that, I was packed back into her beat-up silver Honda Civic, headed to the next place that didn’t want me either.
The house smelled like old cigarettes and canned soup.
Sodium and neglect. The foster parents never smiled—never even pretended to.
They signed forms like I was a package from UPS and then disappeared into another room, shutting the door behind them.
At night, I lay awake in a bed that felt too stiff, staring at a water stain on the ceiling, listening to whispered arguments from downstairs.
Foster homes always whispered their arguments, as if pretending to be quiet made the anger less real.
And now my house was quiet. But not that dead kind of quiet; the empty silence I used to dread.
Not the silence that settled into corners and seeped into walls—the kind that made me strain to hear what was happening in the kitchen, bracing myself for the inevitable argument or a door slamming shut, or worse, for someone to quietly leave and never come back.
No—this quiet was different. It had a pulse. It breathed. It had Valentina’s fingerprints all over it. I could spot them everywhere. Smudged on the fridge door, scattered across the wineglasses she insisted on drinking juice out of now.
This—this was the quiet I craved.
This quiet meant someone lived here with me. Someone had stayed, willingly, not because a social worker had signed some forms; not because they were obligated or paid to or just had no better place to go.
Valentina had chosen this, chosen me, in all my exhausting forms.
Even on the days when I came home frustrated from the physical therapy she demanded I go to, my shoulder aching so badly I could barely pretend otherwise, she was there, sliding the ice pack across the counter without a word, knowing I didn’t want to talk about it but that I needed someone there anyway.
This quiet was filled with her small habits—the pillows she left scattered across the couch even though I kept putting them back, the way she hummed when she made coffee, her stubborn refusal to fold laundry in a way that made sense.
It was the sound of dishes quietly clinking in the sink at midnight, because pregnancy made her crave pancakes at all hours, and the rustle of pages turning in the dark as she read another chapter in the book about childbirth that secretly terrified me.
It wasn’t planned. She’d been on birth control, meticulous about it, an alarm set on her phone, same time every night. She’d missed a few, and I guess those few really made the difference.
When she showed me the test, I’d stood there staring at it, dumbfounded.
She’d shifted nervously, cracking jokes I barely heard—something sarcastic about the odds—but beneath the jokes, I’d seen it in her eyes.
The panic. The doubt. The fear she’d spent years mastering how to hide.
And yet somehow, behind all that, I saw something else too—a glimpse of wonder, that tentative kind of hope.
It hit me harder later, lying awake next to her.
I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out and pressing my palm gently against her stomach.
She’d sighed softly, half-asleep, and curled closer, and that was it.
Something in me shifted, cracked me wide-open.
Because I’d never even let myself want this—never dared to imagine a family.
Not seriously anyway. The thought had always felt dangerous.
Too fragile. Too far out of reach for someone like me.
I’d spent my whole life believing certain things weren’t meant for me. Stability, home, permanence—they were for other people. Luckier people. People who hadn’t grown up counting on nothing and expecting even less.
But Valentina had always been good at proving me wrong.
She’d defied every expectation; crashed through every boundary I’d set up. Now here she was, doing it again. Shattering one more wall I didn’t realize I’d built so high.
And yeah, I was scared as hell. I was terrified of becoming Gerard—terrified I’d be another foster parent fumbling around blindly, breaking the promises I silently made every time I thought about holding our baby.
But I knew deep down it wouldn’t be like that. Because this child wasn’t a burden, wasn’t paperwork, wasn’t something that had been forced onto either of us. It was ours. Entirely ours. Created despite every precaution, every safeguard, and every damn pill.
And weeks later, when we found out it was a boy—our boy—it got even more real.
Valentina had stared at the sonogram with wide, terrified eyes, as if suddenly knowing the gender made the baby less theoretical, made it more of the tiny human we’d be expected to raise.
She’d squeezed my hand so tightly I thought my fingers would lose circulation, and later that night, she’d sat on our bed and listed every single reason she’d be the world’s worst mother.
“I left my hair dryer plugged in last week,” she said, her voice way too shaky for something so trivial.
She sat cross-legged on our bed, surrounded by half-folded laundry she’d already forgotten about.
“What if I do that again, Marco? What if I forget and he touches it? Or the candle—I fell asleep and left it burning twice. Twice!” She looked at me like it was a full confession—like she’d committed an actual crime.
I wanted to smile, but I knew better. Valentina wouldn’t appreciate my amusement. Not in this moment.
Instead I sat down next to her, nudging aside a pile of socks she had no intention of ever matching. “I left the stove on overnight once,” I reminded her quietly.
Her eyes snapped up, eyebrows pulling tight. “You?”
“Yeah, me,” I said steadily, picking up a tiny blue sock and turning it in my fingers. How could feet be this small? “Woke up to the whole apartment smelling like burnt eggs. Could’ve burned the building down.”
“You’re just making that up to make me feel better.”
“I’m not.” I met her gaze, giving her the serious look she always claimed made me look like I belonged in a courtroom. “Even responsible people screw up.”
She punched me in the arm for insinuating she was irresponsible.
“Yeah, well, responsible people don’t accidentally lock themselves outside at two in the morning wearing only a T-shirt. And they definitely don’t call their husband crying about it like it’s the end of the world.”
“Valentina—”
“I just . . .” She exhaled heavily, biting her lip hard enough to make me wince. “What if I ruin him? What if I screw him up? You know my history. I don’t exactly come from stellar choices.”
I shook my head slowly, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, gently running my thumb along her jaw. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“How do you know?” Her voice cracked slightly, quieter now, eyes drifting down to the laundry piled around her. “I feel like I’m just one mistake away from messing it all up. I have zero patience, I’m impulsive, I—”
“You care,” I interrupted. “Enough to sit here panicking about a candle you left burning three months ago. Enough to freak out about hair dryers and locked doors. You care, Valentina. You love him already. That’s more than anyone ever did for me. And that matters.”
She stared at me silently, biting down on whatever sarcastic remark was forming. I knew she wanted to say something—wanted to deflect—but she didn’t. Instead she leaned into me, burying her face in my shoulder and sighing softly.
“It’s just . . . hard,” she whispered, her voice muffled in my shirt. “Knowing someone’s entire life is gonna depend on me getting my shit together. I mean, who put me in charge?”
I smiled faintly, brushing my lips against her temple. “I think that’s biology’s fault.”
She laughed weakly, her breath warm against my chest. “Biology needs better judgment.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I promised, squeezing her hand gently. “Both of us. And when we screw up—which we will—we’ll handle it. He’ll forgive us.”
She sat up slightly, pulling back just enough to look at me with wide, uncertain eyes. “You think so?”
“I know so. He’s yours. He’ll have your stubbornness and my patience. Or vice versa—though God help us if he has your patience.”
She smiled then, genuine, even as she rolled her eyes. “He’s going to be impossible.”
“Absolutely.”
Seven months in, Valentina had officially reached peak demanding.
She blamed the baby, of course, the way she blamed everything these days—from her addiction to strawberry ice cream to the new habit of forgetting her keys, her sunglasses, and occasionally, her shoes.
But mostly, I was learning her demands tended to be things I secretly wanted to give her anyway.
This time, it was a “babymoon”—a concept she’d somehow discovered on social media.
“I deserve one, Marco,” she announced decisively over breakfast, pointing a fork loaded with pancakes at me. Syrup dripped onto the table, but she didn’t seem to care about the mess. “You have no idea how exhausting it is growing your child. I think a vacation is the least I can ask for.”
I raised an eyebrow, mildly amused. “You want a vacation?”
“A babymoon,” she corrected, eyes narrowing dangerously. “And you promised, if you remember, to take me somewhere.”
I sighed dramatically, leaning back in my chair. “Where exactly am I taking you? Fiji? Bali?”
She tilted her head, eyes bright. “Actually, I was thinking New Orleans.”